19th International Economic Forum on Africa

The Managing Director of LADOL, Dr. Amy Jadesimi, joined a high level panel of speakers who participated in the 19th edition of the International Economic Forum on Africa on the theme: “African Integration: Investing in our common future”, on 29 November 2019, in Madrid. The Forum was organised by the OECD Development Centre and the African Union Commission, in collaboration with Casa Arabe, Casa Africa and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation.

Speaking on the opening panel, “Two billion consumers by 2050: Are African enterprises ready? What policies are necessary to advance productive investment and transformation in Africa?”

She said: LADOL is the largest 100% private, 100% indigenous industrial special economic zone in Nigeria. Over the last 18 years the investors have attracted USD 500 million into the Zone, transforming a disused swamp into a world class integrated logistics base and the largest fabrication and integration Yard in West Africa, with the highest lifting capacity in Africa. At LADOL we focus on tackling high value activities, taking on projects that have never been done in Nigeria before – this opens up the market and has a multiplier effect on job creation of between 5 to 10, i.e. for every 1 job created in LADOL, 5 to 10 are created outside LADOL. LADOL is also a model for new economy diversification, we are now leveraging our revenues from servicing the petroleum sector to complete the development of the remainder of the Zone as a completely sustainable ecosystem and circular economy. We spent the last three years perfecting this master plan and we are now rolling it out.

“LADOL’s development highlights the importance of supporting real private sector indigenous companies- because only indigenous companies will have the stamina, staying power and passion to build new businesses over ten to twenty years. 80% of the 680 million new jobs the world needs will be created by SME’s and larger indigenous companies such as LADOL. This means it is imperative that development finance institutions (DFIs) and other investors in Africa directly fund private companies in Africa. To date, the vast majority of funds have gone through intermediaries, with most of the direct funding going to multinationals operating in Africa – this has to change if we want to build a sustainable world and maximise returns to investors.”

Dec 2nd, 2019